Study: Science Awards Go to Men Way More Than Women

Male committee chairs choose men nearly all the time for scholarly scientific recognition

by Lesley Kennedy • MORE.com Reporter

Think you deserve to win recognition for your science savvy? Better hope a woman is on the awards committee.

A new study from the journal Social Studies of Science finds that when scientific awards committees are chaired by men, recipients of those awards are men 95 percent of the time, even though women make up 21 percent of nominees, according to a news release.

Even though more women are winning awards in scientific areas than in decades past, most are for service or teaching, not for scholarly achievement, the study adds.

“On the face of them, awards for women may not raise concerns . . . yet women-only awards can camouflage women's underrepresentation by inflating the number of female award recipients, leading to the impression that no disparities exist,” the authors write.